There are 3 reasons why I no longer follow a diet, and I want to share them with you.

Why I No Longer Follow a Diet

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Diets can lead to ultimate destruction.

People go on diets for many different reasons. When there is a medically sound reason for the diet, it usually leads to healing and thriving.

But when crash and burn diets are employed, they ultimately lead to destruction.

Slow leaks lead to flat tires, in the same way that many times we don’t even know we are about to bottom out with “diet” until we find ourselves there.

Diets can destroy hormones (see: Destroyed Hormones, Part I and Destroyed Hormones, Part II), and they can be destroyed before you have any clue at all.

Also, you can’t diet harder. So there’s that.

I don’t need to.

Medically, I needed to adhere to all the things I preach and teach via The Gutsy Girl’s Bible: an approach to healing the gut, but I have made massive strides. I am in complete remission, and I no longer need to follow any specific diet.

On any given day, I am lead by what I am craving and by how much I have worked out. But mostly by what I am craving.

I no longer have “rules.’ I do, however, still mostly eat food in its whole, original and unprocessed form.

Diets are a joke.

The gluten-free diet means just that – the food you are consuming contains no gluten. The dairy-free diet means just that – the food you are consuming contains no dairy. And the grain-free diet means just that – the food you are consuming contains no grains….and so on.

All of the above are a joke, at least for me.

“Technically” this cake is gluten free and these cookies are dairy free. Rarely would I ever eat either.

There is, quite literally, something on every single diet out there that probably makes me cringe. As a society, we have allowed ourselves to get sucked into the all-or-nothing “diet” mentality.

The only diet that isn’t a joke is the one that works for you based on your body, your lifestyle, your conditions and your belief system. And there is no templated diet out there that fits that unless you have created it yourself sans the “healing” societies rules.

Are you out there? I know you know what I’m talking about.

So what do I eat?

A client recently asked me what a normal day of eating looks like for me these days (in addition to the grocery list I provided). Here was yesterday:

• 32g Super Breakfast Bowl
• Applegate bacon
• 1 cup coffee with full-fat coconut milk
• Buns with Wild Planet tuna, Murphy’s mustard and onion
• arugula
• grapes
• banana
• white rice
• bok choy
• Chicken bone broth, riced cauliflower, curry spice, local olive oil, Aidells Chicken Apple Sausage
• A Loving Spoon peanut butter (obviously, daily)
• Nutiva Organic Coconut Oil
• Cacao baking chips 

No Diet Label

This is not: low fat, low carb, Paleo, SCD, GAPS, Vegan, IIFYM or anything it else.

Instead, it is what works for me.

I’d love to tell you that I am a transformed “intuitive eater,” but I don’t like to identify with that because the notion of intuitive eating still carries connotations of diet for me.

As I mentioned above, this has been the most successful year of healing in my entire life.

In addition to dropping the need to “name” any “diet” I follow, I completely learned how to eat intuitively without ever feeling the urge to proclaim that I follow intuitive eating. Does that even make sense?! 

No matter where you are at on your gut-healing journey at this very moment, know that things can change and that you, too, will have the power to throw any and all diets in the garbage can.

In the meantime, this brand new way of life really rocks!

p.s. I still do, and always will, eat meals and create recipes that fall within certain diet guidelines. This is because (1) I love many of those meals and (2) I know that many of my readers medically need to follow specific diets and because I know all the foods that fall within all the various diets, I am able to easily help reduce that struggle for them.

Xox,
SKH